After 25 years at the helm, Seilheimer stepping down from Montpelier race position

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By Betsy Burke Parker

Charlie Seilheimer, who helped expand the popularity of the Montpelier Hunt Races and assure its financial stability, is stepping down as race chair and president of the Montpelier Steeplechase and Equestrian Foundation on Dec. 31, 2022.

Seilheimer (Douglas Lees photo, left) joined the Montpelier board on Jan. 1, 1997, spending exactly 25 years at the helm of the group tasked with transitioning the Virginia race meet from private lawn party of former owner Marion duPont Scott to a wildly popular autumn sporting event and viable foundation benefit for the National Trust property and historic ancestral home of U.S. President James Madison.

It was time, says Seilheimer, also active on the Virginia Gold Cup Association board and co-founder of the National Steeplechase Foundation (now the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation).

Montpelier co-chair David Perdue takes over for 2023.

Montpelier ‘chase history

The duPont family purchased Montpelier in 1901 and steeplechasing stalwart Marion duPont Scott launched the Montpelier Hunt Races in 1934.

She invited the public to attend the meet held at the privately owned farm; Scott underwrote the entire cost herself. Upon her death in 1983, duPont’s niece, Jean McConnell Sheehan, offered to cover the expenses while the meet transitioned into an event that could pay for itself.

Today, the Montpelier races run for and are managed by the non-profit Montpelier Steeplechase and Equestrian Foundation, attracting some 20,000 spectators and supporting the historic estate.

(Douglas Lees photo from 1971)

The transition was going to be a challenge, Seilheimer remembers. Initially, there was fear of how to operate a race meet during renovations, and angst about tearing off Scott’s pink stucco that encased the original locally-fabricated red bricks of Madison’s era.

She’d added rooms, remodeled others.

And all of it had to go.

(Tod Marks photo of the pink stucco-encased mansion)

Scott’s trainers had run an active thoroughbred training and breeding operation, with a training track, steeplechase course, dirt training track and multiple training barns dotting the property, all of it old and historic but not true to Madison's era. Cement “posts” and rails lined the pastures criss-crossing the vast grassland encircling ancient woodlands.

In the end, Seilheimer and the Montpelier race team pulled it of.

“One year during the renovation, we had to run the races without the use of the main entrance to Montpelier, Center Road, as it was being totally re-engineered,” Seilheimer recalls the sometimes tricky logistics. “That was a challenge to bring in thousands of spectators on two small gravel side roads, but we pulled it off.

“The public loves watching a sporting event on James Madison's front lawn, and the horsemen love racing on the well maintained duPont turf."

(Tod Marks photo of the mansion under renovation on race day)

How it happened

Charlie Seilheimer was born in 1952, sixth-generation Buffalo, New York native. He was an only child, as was his father, but his grandfather had stamped the Seilheimer name across western New York as an appointed, and elected, official.

Henry Seilheimer started as journal clerk of the senate in Albany, named Man of the Year by the Buffalo news.

Charlie Seilheimer got the public service genes from his mother’s side, too: His maternal grandfather was commissioner of public works in Buffalo. “I never knew that grandfather,” Seilheimer recalls, “but from everything I’ve read and heard, my grandfather was a very special man. He was entrusted by the German sector of the community – a huge group, and by the major business people in Buffalo.”

Seilheimer Sr. sparked his son’s interest in business, beauty and the art of giving back.

A fifth-generation native of Buffalo, Charles H. Seilheimer, Montpelier Seilheimer’s father, was born into a family already prominent in Buffalo's business and political circles.

Following graduation from the University of Michigan, the senior Seilheimer pursued a career in finance, first as a partner in a securities firm and later as an executive of Liberty Bank, now Fleet Bank.

In the early 1970s, he and his wife, Erma, moved to Warrenton, Virginia where he volunteered with many organizations. He had a special interest in woodworking and carving, and hand-crafted an ornate totem pole still standing in a town park near the old Broadview racecourse.

“My father had sparked my interest in wood and woodworking at a very young age, too,” Seilheimer, junior, says. “My parents weren’t collectors, but they liked old, beautiful American country furniture.

“I remember (getting) tossed in the back of the car on weekends and we’d head out to go antiquing in western New York.

“My father taught me about woods, oh, I was about 5. I remember one of his favorites was (beautiful) curly maple.

“He helped me start my first art collection – when I was young, I was entranced by paperweights. I began to develop a collection in my own little way. My father, to encourage me, got me a book on paperweights, then he helped me see the long-game and said we’ll buy something with your earnings from your newspaper route. To be fair, I’d contribute 5 cents and he’d contribute 95 cents, but I started my first collection that way.”

It led to finer pursuits, eventually, Seilheimer recalls: “When the v-room v-room got more interesting, I sold that paperweight collection to fund my first car – a (now classic, iconic) 1959 Ford Fairlane convertible.”

Seilheimer spent summers of his youth on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario at the family compound on the Canadian shore, sandy half-moon beaches compared to the rocky shores of Michigan.

When he first learned to drive a powerboat at age 6, he began to hone a sense of respect and responsibility that pervades still today. Seilheimer says his father taught him “everything he needed to know about boating and boat safety. I was, what, 6, 7 years old and could hop in a boat and go up a few bays to visit friends," like having a car when you're far too young for a driver's license.

“It was a really special way … of growing up.”

In addition to the summer pursuits of pike fishing and boating, Seilheimer says he was “always interested in architecture and art. My mother was always interested, that’s where that came from.

Understanding Charlie Seilheimer – Dollars to donuts

🍩 National Steeplechase Association Director of Racing Bill Gallo:

As the longstanding race chairman for the Montpelier Hunt Races, Charlie and I worked closely at creating and improving the annual racing card. Over that period Montpelier has advanced as a race meet and improved with escalating purses and superb racing conditions, which has been greatly appreciated by the NSA horsemen.

For several years Charlie also served on the NSA board of directors and helped guide our sport forward in a positive manner. He has made a great contribution to steeplechasing in America, and we at the NSA are most grateful."

🍩 David Perdue, former co-director of racing at Montpelier who steps into Seilheimer’s role this year said in a news story that Seilheimer will be remembered as a strong protector of and promoter for historic preservation, open space conservation and horse racing:

Charlie has more physical and intellectual endurance than all the people and any of the racehorses he has so meaningfully helped all these years.”

🍩 Charlie Fenwick, NSA horseman and part of the team – which included Seilheimer – that created the National Steeplechase Foundation, now the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Foundation:

Charlie (Seilheimer) was a very good operator and had much information at his fingertips. He is a great admirer of the many traditions of steeplechasing in Virginia. I remember a wonderful night celebrating the 75th anniversary of Battleship’s Grand National win (organized by Seilheimer to remember Marion duPont Scott homebred Battleship winning the 1938 English Grand National.)"

The National Steeplechase Foundation was officially created in 1995, by the following founding trustees: Arthur W. Arundel, Charles C. Fenwick, Jr., Mrs. Walter M. Jeffords, Jr., John T. von Stade, Mrs. H. Tumey McKnight, William L. Pape, and Charles H. Seilheimer, Jr.

©Douglas Lees

🍩 Martha Strawther joined Seilheimer at the Montpelier Steeplechase and Equestrian Foundation in 2006 when she signed on as executive director.

She says she and Seilheimer became friends as well as colleagues. He’s the consummate professional, she says, a highly effective logistician but he’s a good sport, too:

We had a meeting with a sponsor in Fredericksburg one morning and afterward had planned to have a conversation. I let him select the spot – he bypassed all the fancy coffee shops and picked a Krispy Kreme.

Keep in mind Charlie was in ‘full regalia’ – a lovely tweed jacket, silk tie and pocket scarf, a flat racing cap.

He had no idea what he was in for.

He watched the donuts come off the assembly line and said we’d get a selection and see what we liked. So here comes the plastic tray and paper plate with donuts.

Charlie asked for some silverware. I thought the poor girl waiting on us was going to cry, because, of course, they didn't have any.

He said, ‘no problem, I have a pocket knife!’

We cut the donuts and tasted them. When I suggested he get a bag to take home, he said ‘No way, and don't you dare tell Mary Lou I was in here!’ ”

“Horses, I guess came from her, too. My mother had a horse. My aunt had a horse. But by the time that I came along, my mother was no longer riding.”

Seilheimer never rode, but the seed – interest in horses and equestrian pursuits – was planted early.

Seilheimer was class of 1959 at the Nichols School in Buffalo, then studied political science and history at Middlebury College. He graduated in 1963 then headed to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. for his law degree. Seilheimer attended class in the mornings, working afternoons on staff for Sen. Kenneth Keating.

“You start out opening mail, of course,” Seilheimer recalls, but he swiftly gained Keating’s trust and was selected to travel with him to the home district surrounding Rochester in western New York to plan speeches and arrange meetings.

Keating (right) was a moderate republican who was pivotal in identifying Russian missiles being arrayed in Cuba in 1962 and played a big role in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Keating lost his senate seat in a heated election campaign by Bobby Kennedy in 1965. He later served as a judge on the New York Court of Appeals and as U.S. ambassador to India and Israel.

“Keating was very nice, a very bright guy,” Seilheimer recalls. “I was always very interested in politics,” though, even with Seilheimer’s public service bloodlines, he never sought elected office himself.

GW law degree in hand, Seilheimer joined a small commercial real estate firm, working on the finance side of projects that included his first, glancing connection to steeplechasing: He was involved in development of one of Washington’s first shopping centers – Seven Corners. Seven Corners was built by the Randolph Rouse Enterprises of Virginia steeplechase Hall of Fame champion owner-rider Randy Rouse.

The Virginia Point-to-Point Foundation’s owner-rider timber division still offers the Seven Corners series trophy.

Charlie Seilheimer with Randy Rouse at the 2014 Montpelier Races.

©Douglas Lees

Putting it all together

Seilheimer co-founded a real estate resources company, next harnessing all his interests – art, business, preservation and real estate – to form Sotheby’s International Realty.

“I’d been a Sotheby’s client for a long time” as an art patron, he explains. “I started to recognize an obvious link – it occurred to me that Sotheby’s was more than an art sales company.

“It was more a specialized sales company. If you’re selling the art off the walls, why not sell the walls, too.”

Sotheby’s International Realty was formed in 1976.

In the late 1970s, Seilheimer and wife, Mary Lou (Douglas Lees photo from 2017), moved to historic Leeton Forest in Warrenton. It was there his affiliation with steeplechase became cemented when he attended the Virginia Gold Cup then held at Broadview a few blocks from Leeton Forest.

As had become his trademark with everything, Seilheimer became interested, then involved. Today, he remains the longest-serving member of the Gold Cup board.

The Seilheimers bought another historic property, Mount Sharon in Orange County, Virginia in 1995, undertaking an arduous renovation project at the 1700s estate. True to form, Seilheimer became instantly involved in local community, sporting and preservation projects, in 1997 joining the board of what’s now the Montpelier Steeplechase and Equestrian Foundation and growing the formerly small meet to one of the biggest, most festive fall races on the National Steeplechase schedule.

“We’re still just a little country race meet,” Seilheimer insists, stressing that Montpelier sticks close to its roots. More than 20,000 spectators attended the Nov. 5 races this year, full fields on a packed, competitive program that proved a lucrative benefit for the Montpelier estate.

“It’s been both a challenge and a delight,” Seilheimer said in a release, “but now the time is right to pass the leadership on to a new generation.”

Charlie Seilheimer at the 2022 Montpelier Hunt Races.

©Douglas Lees

How the garden grows

🌸 Charlie Seilheimer served on the board of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation from 2002 to 2014. More than 543,000 acres in Virginia were placed in conservation easement during his tenure.

🌸 Seilheimer in a 2012 article in the Orange County Review on the legacy of preserving open land:

Conservation easements deal in forevers and they deal in ideals. In the high stakes game of “forever,” they're maybe the closest thing to a safe bet, a trust fund for land and resources. For environmentalists they're a safety net, for pro-growthers, they're an impediment and for everyone else they're the assurance that open land will remain open.

“You have a mud and boots farmer, who derives his livelihood solely from farming,” Seilheimer said in the article. “His family has farmed the land for generations, and he intends for it to stay that way. Easements protect land and make sure no one could muck it up.

“We have a gorgeous countryside (and) a lot of history has been protected. If we don't take an active role and allow growth to occur willy-nilly, it's not going to leave much of a legacy.”

🌸 2008 Massie Medal winner from the Garden Club of Virginia, Mary Lou Seilheimer is a standout in the gardening world. Former GCV president Kim Nash says both Seilheimers are champions of design and proportion. “The gardens at Mount Sharon display (their) style, attention to detail and generosity” as they regularly open the formal and informal garden spaces to the public.

Mary Lou Seilheimer at an event in 2013.

©Douglas Lees

🌸 Mount Sharon is at the second-highest point in Orange County, Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountain range. Part of a land grant issued by King George in 1725, Mount Sharon remained in the hands of the same family for centuries. In 1995, Charlie and Mary Lou Seilheimer purchased the property.

At the time, Mount Sharon was centered on a grand Georgian-style brick home with traces of a garden dating back to the 18th century. The main outdoor feature was a 450-foot boxwood “hall” reaching west to east behind the main house.

Much of the estate was in disrepair when the Seilheimers bought it. They enlisted renowned landscape architect Charles Stick to design a new garden, adding “rooms” outdoors, framed with specimen trees, ornamental shrubs and flowering native plants. Stick and Seilheimer incorporated many of the existing trees – including a 250-year-old tulip poplar, the 100-year-old boxwoods and ancient black walnut trees to form the backbone of the old-new gardens that frame the Blue Ridge Mountain backdrop.

View of the Blue Ridge Mountains from atop Mount Sharon, from the article, "Mount Sharon: There’s Gold In The Hills Of Orange, Virginia"

🌸 Landscape architect Charles Stick told a Virginia magazine that building up the Mount Sharon gardens wasn’t all about adding things. “Making gardens is a lot about subtraction,” he told the reporter. The central concern was “how you tie a house to a garden and a garden to the surrounding landscape.

“The trick in making a garden is to try to stay out of the way of what I refer to as the genius of the place. You can make gardens and have them be in harmony with the surroundings. Nothing can compete with that landscape.”

Stick designed the garden at Mount Sharon specifically as a vantage point to the surrounding vistas.

“The view from the garden is the most important thing about the garden. I look at what I do as being an interpreter,” responsible for being “clear-sighted and open and sensitive to what the land has to tell, [and to] meld the story of my clients and the story of the land. Mary Lou and Charlie had a very specific story to tell.”

The Vantage and the Vista

(Photography by Roger Foley)

🌸 Mary Lou is “more the horticultural end of the gardens,” Charlie Seilheimer says, “I’m more the structural end of it. Clerk of the works.” A statue of Eros, the Greek god of love, stands in one of the formal garden rooms to commemorate the Seilheimers’ 40th wedding anniversary.

(Photography, right, by Roger Foley)

🌸 Mary Lou Seilheimer is past president of the Boys and Girls Club of Orange. With the Garden Club of Virginia, she co-chaired a $2,000,000 campaign for the restoration and expansion of its headquarters in Richmond and chaired the restoration committee which designates recipients of Historic Garden Week in Virginia proceeds. She served as board chair of the Highland School, Warrenton, Virginia.

She’s a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Sweet Briar College with a degree in mathematics.

Mary Lou and Charlie Seilheimer with family at the 2018 Montpelier Hunt Races.

©Douglas Lees

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